Saturday Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, August 27

All my wife's work

Chris 1051

Hi, everybody! Hot where you are? Muggy? Dry? Got fire? Rain?

Above, evidence of a lucky husband and lucky neighbors. What a beautiful garden!

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

Hey KT,

I am not sure if I shared that I was growing hosta chilis this year. I got seeds for hot green and hot red when I was a a specialty nursery. The greens have come in like gangbusters. Today's harvest was nine. The red plant is loaded but they are still green so I am waiting for those to ripen. Also in the picture, an Armenian cucumber. They are sneaky little devils, one day you say, "Eh, I will leave it another day" and the next day you come back to this monster. When they are this big I peel them and scoop out the seeds and just eat the flesh.
Happy puttering horde!

WeeKreekFarmGirl

The peppers look great! Armenian cucumbers, being melons, are better adapted to hot weather than actual cucumbers.

The Famous Pat* had three late entries in the comments last week. In the last one, we learn that she won some awards in the Western Idaho Fair!

Now: Western Idaho Fair!! Entry day was Tues. 16th. First I had to dig up my yellow carrots. This was a challenge - under tomato vines, in hard dirt. I had to dig to the very bottom of the bed (11 inches), and add water to make mud. Then I found out some had grown down right through the hardware cloth wires... so no Largest Carrot entry, since the tips broke off. (Next year - carrots in the top of the strawberry ziggurat, where they'll have almost 2 feet of dirt!)

Still, that digging effort was worth it - my first blue ribbon ever was for "Carrots, Any Other Color"!!
Also, 2nd for Largest Zucchini (9 pounds 2.7 oz.)
2nd for sage
3rd for yellow zucchini
4th for flatleaf parsley
4th for spearmint
4th for "5 herb collection"
(sweet basil got nuthin').

So it's still called my Second Place Herb Garden. Still, if I added correctly, I'll get $25 for my efforts - wow, I will sure pile up lots of retirement savings this way! . .

We can tell that you're in it for the money, Pat*

We've posted photos of some of By-Tor's entries and a recipe or two previously:

My actual ribbons for the LA County Fair came in today. Best of Class and Best of Division for my pork jerky, Best of Class for Bread and Butter pickles, and a 2nd place for dill pickles. Not bad for a first timer.

He went on to submit some entries in the Orange County Fair, too! Inspiration for other members of The Horde. And their kids! Learn some gardening and preservation skillz!

Congratulations to Pat* and By-Tor!

Who else is harvesting crops or putting things by?

How are things going in the desert?

This year, maybe better than you would suspect. We've heard from WeeKreekFarmGirl above, but there's more:

From budmsn:

It's monsoon season here in So. Arizona. After weeks of rain, the desert and mountains spring forth with thick, green carpets of natural grasses, trees, and flowers. This is a photo of the Santa Rita mountains, south of Tucson. The peak in the center of the photo, Mt. Wrightson, is 9,456'. The observatory on Mt. Hopkins is 8,553'. It is a spectacular scene. If only my photography skills were sufficient to capture the vast, green beauty!

Gorgeous. And nice descriptions of the landscape, too. Thanks!

From MikeK:

Here in Tucson water is expensive. My wife still has a bit of a garden. Those are Mexican birds of paradise. A big ocotillo is behind them.

Dramatic!

Gardens of The Horde

I move from a big house to a little condo so had to miniaturize my ideas about house plants. I loved the beautiful arrangements at Anthropologies but they were very expensive so decided to do my own. I've been rewarded with some flowering cacti.

Sharon (Willow's Apprentice)

I love the look of those plant compositions!

We got some flower photos from Badgerwx, but today, I'm just posting the butterfly-related photos:

And a HT to KT for suggesting last year that I try the 'real' milkweed instead of the orange butterfly weed to attract monarch caterpillars. I started a patch of swamp milkweed near a downspout this spring & yesterday found a caterpillar munching away. The local nursery is having their end of summer sale & I got 2 more milkweeds (75% off!) to add to my patch for next year. Maybe they'll also seed themselves but I like the extra insurance.

Here is what I found this morning when I checked on the Monarch caterpillar that I found on my milkweed last weekend. I don't know exactly when it formed its chrysalis, so it could be 7-14 more days before there's a butterfly. . .

Anybody else growing butterflies? Here's a piece on The magic of milkweed with some information on various species. Some are invasive. Some are quite lovely.

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

If you would like to send photos, stories, links, etc. for the Saturday Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, the address is:

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Week in Review

What has changed since last week's thread? Saturday Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, August 20

Any thoughts or questions?

I closed the comments on this post so you wouldn't get banned for commenting on a week-old post, but don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 01:30 PM

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